Buildings, and door systems for such buildings, are frequently used for a wide variety of purposes. The term buildings, for purposes of the present invention, includes structural enclosures, that includes not only site built buildings but also modular, prefabricated, kits, or other types of residential, commercial, industrial buildings. Site built buildings are constructed on site while the components for the other buildings are typically fabricated at a manufacturing location, then transported to the building site and assembled. The buildings may be used for residential, commercial, office, as well as for storage, for garage use, for home shops, for light industrial use, heavy industrial use, commercial use, and even for residential occupancy.
These buildings must be durable as well as aesthetically pleasing. The buildings may be used in widely ranging environmental situations, from desert hot temperatures to freezing artic cold. Also, the door systems may receive rough usage so the durability of construction is important. This must be balanced with a door system that is attractive as well.
Typically buildings are used for a wide range of uses, from residential to commercial to industrial, and with a wide range of customer tastes. Thus a door system suitable in one environment or to one customer may not be suitable for another use or customer taste. It is thus important to be able to create a variety of looks for such door systems. However this can greatly drive up the costs of manufacturing and inventory for the manufacturer.
Another critical feature of door systems for such building construction is the cost of such doors. Most buildings are constructed under a tight economic budget. Thus the factors of durability, aesthetics, and customization must be balanced with the economics of providing such doors.
Previous attempts at providing satisfactory doors for buildings have not always been particularly successful. The typical exterior door ranges from a solid panel door for residential use, glass or metal doors for use in office and commercial uses and sheet metal attached to a simple framework or a wooden core door for use in storage, garages or other buildings. The solid panel doors tend to be expensive and not suitable in many production environments, glass or metal office doors are not suitable in many environments and sheet metal doors are either flimsy and do not survive very well in normal usage, or extremely heavy and expensive. Also many doors, particularly those used in storage buildings, sheds and the like are simply a sheet of exterior building materials attached to a wooden framework. For example, a typical door for a shed is simply a sheet of plywood fastened to a wooden two by four frame.
The typical wooden door, either solid panel or hollow core, does not weather well in many environments. Also, these doors will warp, decay or delaminate as well. This requires repair or replacement of the doors at relatively frequent intervals.
Thus a need exists for a sound and attractive door system for use in buildings and that are relatively inexpensive.